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Indiana Magazine of HistoryFarm and Factory: Workers in the Midwest, 1880–1990Daniel NelsonBook ReviewGary L. BaileyIndiana Magazine of HistoryBloomington, INIndiana University Department of History in cooperation with the Indiana
Historical Society1996492372-374

Daniel Nelson's Farm and Factory provides a much-needed synthesis of
scholarship on the history of work and working people in the Midwest. Moreover, Nelson not only
synthesizes this scholarship but also uses it to advance several arguments about the distinctive
character of the Midwest. A volume in the Midwestern History and Culture series, edited by James H.
Madison and Thomas J. Schlereth, this book should inform
historians of work, working people, and the Midwest for years to come and thus is a welcome
contribution. At the same time, it leaves the reader wanting a bit more.

Nelson is very clear about his geographical and topical focus. He wishes to explore work broadly
defined, including–as his title indicates–labor in agriculture and industry;
he also devotes significant attention to white-collar workers. Though he says that he
"arbitrarily defined the Midwest as the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin,
Minnesota, and Iowa" (p. vii), this sensible definition will seem arbitrary to very few readers.
Most important, Nelson presents a convincing thesis: "the essential feature of the
region's labor history that set it apart from other American regions was the sustained,
simultaneous growth of agriculture and industry, a feature that produced notable patterns of
individual mobility and that left a distinctive and inescapable heritage" (p. vii).

The rapid, simultaneous growth of agriculture and industry, Nelson argues, created two work forces:
one primarily native and agrarian, the other primarily urban and immigrant. The shift of labor from
farm to factory, a feature of the economic and social history of other regions, did not occur in the
Midwest until after World War II. A combination of resources, location, and opportunity made the
region a center of innovative practices in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Another distinctive regional feature was the strength of workers'
"voice." Through unions, politics, and farmers' groups, working people
played an unusually large role in the region's economic history. Together, these factors
created in the Midwest a unique pattern of work and employment that produced prosperity and
stability. By the post-World War II years, however, the innovative methods of scientific agriculture
and mass production, upon which the region's prosperity was built, had ceased to be new,
and no comparable innovations succeeded them; the relatively underdeveloped service sector failed to
provide sufficient alternative economic opportunities to compensate. The collapse of industry and
agriculture in the region from the 1960s on represented both a consequence of this pattern and an
end of it. By the 1980s the region was suffering its most severe crisis since the Great Depression,
and there were visible only the barest outlines of a new, emerging structure of work and
opportunity.

Clearly a brief review cannot do justice to an interpretation of such complexity. Nelson builds his
arguments on an impressively broad reading of the literature on midwestern history; historians will
find his notes a rich resource. The reliance on secondary sources means that those who have studied
the history of workers or agriculture in the Midwest will find
much that is familiar, though they often will see familiar stories integrated into new patterns.
Suggestions for further research abound, as, for example, in the treatment of company unions as more
varied, and at times more influential and reflective of the worker's voice, than
conventional explanations allow.

Of necessity, a work of this type must omit much. Perhaps of necessity, the texture and drama of the
lives of working people are largely invisible here. Aside from a handful of national figures, few
individual lives appear (and those only briefly). While Nelson effectively integrates the findings
of the past generation of labor and social historians, treating briefly such topics as ethnic
communities and workplace culture, there is little discussion of the efforts of working people to
create meaningful lives. Even events like the region's major strikes come across as
surprisingly colorless. Nor is the devastation brought by the past generation's economic
changes really evident. Few readers new to the history of work and working people will sense the
drama and excitement of the field.

Less of necessity than by choice, Nelson does not address some broader questions. The book tells the
story of a region whose people played the game properly. Hard-working and innovative, the
generations described in this book created a regional economy of incredible productivity: midwestern
fields and factories were the envy of the world, bringing prosperity to millions and playing a
crucial role in the nation's economic development. Yet just a generation or so after this
system had reached maturity, it fell apart. While Nelson offers some interesting tentative thoughts
about the region's future prospects, he provides little comment on what one is to make of
the midwestern experience. From industrial heartland to rust belt in a generation–how
could such a seemingly solid economic base turn out to have been so fragile? What does this
region's experience offer to those who want to build stable, sustainable economies? Indeed,
what is one to make of an economic system that devastates regions in this way? Given
Nelson's deep understanding of economics, work, and workers, one wishes he had chosen to
offer the reader his thoughts on these matters.

In fairness, though, in a book of this type the author is not obligated to address such questions.
Farm and Factory fulfills its purpose admirably: it provides an insightful,
wide-ranging look at work and workers in the Midwest. It will certainly be a basic resource on
regional history for years to come, as well as a book that adds to our broader understanding of the
nation's labor and economic history.

GARY L. BAILEY is associate professor of history at
Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches public, labor, and recent American history.